Over the past decade, the search for an explanation of aggregate money wage stickiness in the face of substantial shifts in the marginal revenue product of labor-of the kind that was associated with an increase in real wages in the depression of the 1930'shas led to an extensive examination of explicit (union) and implicit (nonunion) employment contracting arrangements. This distinction can be exaggerated: long-term union contracts have an implicit element in the sense that they specify only a limited number of contingencies to which wages will be adjusted. Moreover, the implicit contracting branch of the literature has pushed in the direction of implying that the explicit contracts observed in the union sector may be formalizations of common informal arrangements in the nonunion sector, so that differences between the sectors in the behavior of wages and employment may be more apparent than real. The purpose of this paper is to examine the empirical basis for some of the key propositions of implicit contract theories and to note some important differences in the outcome of implicit and explicit contracting.

This article analyzes the growth of regulatory litigation under the National Labor Relations Act by modeling the compliance and enforcement decisions made by the employers, unions, and workers covered by the act. An empirical analysis of the model on time-series data for 1950-80 confirms the importance of compliance and enforcement incentives in explaining the growth of unfair labor practice charges. While some actions of the National Labor Relations Board, the regulatory agency established by the act, influence these incentives and the resulting regulatory litigation, changes in some important incentives, notably relative labor costs, are beyond the board's influence.

This paper critically reviews the research on how collective bargaining systems influence macroeconomic performance in industrialized countries. The review considers effects of bargaining level, coordination, and corporatist institutional arrangements. Key empirical results turn out to be quite fragile, and much of the paper explores issues of measurement and specification that account for the fragility. The paper concludes that complementarities between key institutions and between institutions and the economic environment may be more important for macroeconomic performance than the effects of individual institutions, and it suggests research strategies.